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BTS returned to Chicago night at Soldier Field for its Arirang World Tour, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of HYBE\/BIGHIT MUSIC<\/p>\n
Each band member leaned into his strength \u2014 Jimin with his falsetto and RM, SUGA, and J-Hope as rhyme slayers \u2014 and amplified their talents for the betterment of the group. When the members physically came together in the center of the stage for riveting moments of choreography, the chemistry felt like no time had passed.<\/p>\n
But BTS was clearly focused on the present and future of the group.<\/p>\n
The evening focused largely on BTS\u2019 March release, \u201cArirang,\u201d which felt like a purposeful introduction to the group\u2019s refined version \u201c2.0\u201d alluded to on the album. By now, the boy band are now all men, and the K-pop they helped to define as vanguards of the genre seems to be something they want to rewrite.<\/p>\n
\u201cArirang\u201d has a heavier street style with more Western R&B and hip-hop flair and English-language lyrics, and the band worked with producers like Diplo, Ryan Tedder and JPEGMafia to birth this metamorphosis. The Army loved it \u2014 a song like \u201cFYA\u201d was better received than even past pop hits like \u201cDynamite\u201d and \u201cButter.\u201d<\/p>\n
BTS also recently declined to submit any new music for the 2027 Recording Academy Awards, refusing to be lumped into the new Best Asian Pop Music category. All of it points to a push-and-pull evolution of BTS\u2019 future, something they grapple with in a song like \u201cAliens\u201d and in their recent Netflix documentary, \u201cThe Return,\u201d about furthering their global status while recognizing their roots.<\/p>\n
Human moments like these stood out during the evening: After the night\u2019s scripted parts wound down, the band performed two \u201csurprise songs,\u201d \u201cTomorrow\u201d and \u201cHip-Hop Phile,\u201d followed by all members of BTS casually sitting down on a rotating platform to give end-of-night speeches.<\/p>\n
Using a translator, Jung Kook fondly remembered the last time BTS played Chicago in the rain and shouted out the fans who planned to come back for day two, of which there were many, judging by the applause. SUGA thought back to his solo D-Day tour he brought to the city in 2023, while RM remembered his own solo trip to the Art Institute in 2018 which \u201copened a big interest for me into the art world\u201d he said, tying it back to his exhibition opening at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art this fall.<\/p>\n
But it was J-Hope talking about his groundbreaking Lollapalooza solo debut in 2022 that drove the feelings home for the local crowd. \u201cChicago is one of the places that made me who I am as an artist,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel like Chicago has its own folder in my head \u2026 and tonight on the Arirang Tour with you guys I\u2019m going to save this one in there too. Thanks for all the memories, you guys mean so much to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
BTS returns to Soldier Field on Friday.<\/p>\n
BTS Arirang World Tour set list<\/p>\n
Hooligan
Aliens
Run BTS
They Don\u2019t Know \u2019Bout Us
Like Animals
Fake Love
Swim
Merry Go Round
2.0
Normal
Not Today
Mic Drop
FYA
Fire
Body To Body
Idol
Come Over
Butter
Dynamite
Tomorrow
Hip Hop Phile
Please
Into The Sun<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The seven-year itch has finally been scratched. BTS returned to Chicago Thursday night for the first time since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":829170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":["post-829169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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